Global fakery  

Global temperature chicanery is a substantiated and metastasizing problem. And the longer these shenanigans go ignored, the more taxpayers all over the world are being embarrassingly duped into forking over money to address an obscure, perhaps even non-existent, problem. In a new study, well-known researchers Dr. James P. Wallace III, Dr. Joseph S. D'Aleo and Dr. Craig D. Idso explore and affirm the issue of revisionist temperature data, the results of which significantly tarnish the “settled science” narrative.

“The objective of this research,” the team writes, “was to test the hypothesis that Global Average Surface Temperature (GAST) data, produced by NOAA, NASA, and HADLEY, are sufficiently credible estimates of global average temperatures such that they can be relied upon for climate modeling and policy analysis purposes.” What the researchers discovered was “that each new version of GAST has nearly always exhibited a steeper warming linear trend over its entire history. And, it was nearly always accomplished by systematically removing the previously existing cyclical temperature pattern.” In other words, much like how the Left constantly revises history to advance its ideology, government scientists are making bold climate claims citing data that relies on conjecture or, worse, outright deceit.

The study continues, “The conclusive findings of this research are that the three GAST data sets are not a valid representation of reality. In fact, the magnitude of their historical data adjustments … are totally inconsistent with published and credible U.S. and other temperature data. Thus, it is impossible to conclude from the three published GAST data sets that recent years have been the warmest ever — despite current claims of record setting warming.” As Dr. D'Aleo explained to one media outlet, “Nearly all of the warming they are now showing are in the adjustments. Each dataset pushed down the 1940s warming and pushed up the current warming.” Scientists who demand that we place unbridled trust in their integrity are proving just why so many of their assertions are tossed into the “fake news” category.

SOURCE





Lawmakers Cite Evidence Russia ‘Colludes’ With US Green Groups to Block Fracking

Forget about allegations of Russian interference in U.S. presidential elections for a moment, or even “collusion” between Russian officials and Trump campaign operatives.

The real action is in the European and U.S. energy markets, according to a letter from two Texas congressmen to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that details what they call “a covert anti-fracking campaign” with “little or no paper trail.”

The Daily Signal obtained a copy of the June 29 letter to Mnuchin from Reps. Lamar Smith and Randy Weber, both Republicans who chair energy-related House panels. (See the full letter below.)

Smith and Weber quote sources saying the Russian government has been colluding with environmental groups to circulate “disinformation” and “propaganda” aimed at undermining hydraulic fracturing. Commonly called fracking, the process makes it possible to access natural gas deposits.

The sources include a former secretary-general of NATO, who is quoted by the GOP congressmen as saying:

Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called nongovernmental organizations—environmental organizations working against shale gas—to maintain dependence on imported Russian gas.

This anti-fracking campaign seizes upon environmental issues and health concerns that could be used to constrain U.S. drilling and fracking exercises, the letter explains.

Gazprom, a large Russian oil company, stands to benefit if Russian-funded environmental activism results in reduced levels of fracking and natural gas production in the United States, Smith and Weber tell Mnuchin. They write:

It is easy to see the benefit to Russia and Gazprom that would result from a reduction in the U.S. level of drilling and fracking—a position advocated for by numerous environmental groups in the U.S.

Smith, chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, joined Weber, chairman of that panel’s energy subcommittee, in calling on the treasury secretary to investigate whether Russia works with American environmental activists to prevent the U.S. from developing its natural gas resources.

Top U.S. government officials who have acknowledged the connection between Russian and environmental groups include former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president in 2016.

In 2014, Clinton delivered a “private speech” in which she discussed Russia’s financial support for environmental groups, the letter says. The speech was included in documents released by WikiLeaks, it says.

An Oct. 10, 2016, report in The Washington Times quoted Clinton as saying:

We [the State Department and the U.S. government] were up against Russia pushing oligarchs and others to buy media. We were even up against phony environmental groups, and I’m a big environmentalist, but these were funded by the Russians to stand up against any effort, ‘Oh that pipeline, that fracking, that whatever will be a problem for you,’ and a lot of that money supporting that effort was coming from Russia.

Contrary to what Russia’s propaganda machine and its environmental allies have told news consumers in Europe and America, fracking is safe, effective, and enormously beneficial, Nick Loris, an economist and energy policy analyst with The Heritage Foundation, said in an email to The Daily Signal.

“If successful, an anti-fracking campaign is depriving Americans of good-paying jobs and affordable, dependable energy,” Loris said. “Despite smears and outright lies from environmental activists, smart drilling and energy extraction technologies have been proven to be safe.”

“It feels like every week a new study is published, confirming what we already know,” he said. “Hydraulic fracturing does not contaminate drinking water. The facts and history of hydraulic fracturing, a history that dates back more than half a century and over 1 million fracked wells, indicate that many of the fears associated with the process are grossly exaggerated or flat-out unsubstantiated.”

Loris added:

The good news, however, is that the anti-fracking campaign really hasn’t been all that successful in ‘keeping it in the ground.’ The U.S. is the world’s largest petroleum and natural gas producer, and we can thank fracking and American energy companies for it.

The result is that money is going back into bank accounts of hardworking families through lower energy bills, and American businesses are more competitive because of lower input costs. And we’re in a position to supply our allies with power, significantly reducing the ability of any one nation’s ability to manipulate energy markets for political gain.

In their letter to the treasury secretary, Smith and Weber also say the Russians have been able to advance their strategy without “a paper trail.”

They pass along reports that Russia apparently funnels the money through a Bermuda-based “shell company” known as Klein Ltd.

Tens of millions of dollars are moved from Russia through Klein “in the form of anonymous donations” to a U.S.-based nonprofit called the Sea Change Foundation.

The money, the congressmen write, then is moved in the form of grants to U.S. environmental organizations.

SOURCE




Why the Greens Hate Nuclear Power
   
Let’s stretch our imaginations for a moment and assume that the Left is right that global warming will bring apocalyptic warming by the end of the century and that the only way to save the planet from extinction is to stop using fossil fuels right now. That will be a spectacular disruption to world economic prosperity, because cheap fossil fuels account for about two-thirds of all electric power generation and at least 80 percent of transportation fuel.

But if we did stop using fossil fuels, what would make the most sense as a mass-scale substitute to coal, natural gas and oil? What could reduce carbon emissions while also keeping energy affordable and reliable?

If you answered “wind and solar power,” you flunk. These are the most expensive and impractical alternatives. The obvious solution to keeping the world’s cellphones, computers, homes and factories powered up with minimal economic disruption, if it ever came to that, would be for the world to build hundreds of nuclear power plants.

To state an obvious point that almost all the Sierra Club elites and the Michael Bloombergs of the world choose to ignore: Nuclear power can give us all the power we need to keep our modern industrial and technological world economy rolling without emitting any greenhouse gases.

Yet nuclear power is declining as an alternative energy source, and plants are being shuttered at a record pace. The big problem for atomic energy is that it can’t compete on price with the new age of cheap shale gas and, to a lesser extent, clean coal. The regulatory burden on nuclear energy is also a killer, costing an estimated $9 million per plant, according to the American Action Network.

Even still, a nuclear plant generates much cheaper electric power on a much wider scale than wind and solar power. In the U.S., for example, wind and solar require about five to 10 times the government subsidy to provide a kilowatt of electricity than does nuclear power. And nuclear power is a much more dependable form of energy than wind and solar. One of green energy’s fatal flaws is that it isn’t scalable for large industrial economies and thus these energy sources make nations highly vulnerable to crippling brownouts and blackouts, as Europe and Australia have learned of late.

For those who don’t drink the Kool-Aid of the radical Left environmentalists, these are incontrovertible facts. But here and around the world the Left is about as hostile to nuclear power as they are to oil and coal.

I just got back from an economic conference in Korea. While I was there the newly elected left-of-center president, Moon Jae-in, announced a “nuclear-free” era for the nation, starting with the shutdown of a major nuclear reactor. The greens were practically dancing in the streets. But why? Few nations have been as reliant on nuclear power as Korea. In many ways, cheap and reliable atomic energy helped make possible the “miracle on the Han River"— i.e., the swift post-World War II economic surge of Korea. President Jae-in says that renewable energy will take its place.

From an environmental perspective what is happening in the U.S., Korea and around the world is asinine. Why would you want to shut down a nuclear plant, which requires at most about 1 square mile of land, to replace that power source with windmills, which would require 300 square miles of land to be paved over? Do environmentalists really believe that green progress means looking out at America’s majestic mountains, forests, green oceans, wilderness areas and deserts and viewing miles upon miles of nothing but windmills and solar paneling?

I’m not a cheerleader for nuclear power. The storage of nuclear waste and the accidents such as Fukushima make everyone understandably nervous. In the U.S., nuclear plants generally can’t get private insurance to cover accidents, and so the industry relies heavily on the federal government for subsidized insurance. Perhaps the advent of smaller reactors would alleviate the public’s fears.

My point here is that nothing exposes the insincerity of the global climate change movement as does the Left’s hatred of nuclear power. We can save the planet from climate change and have all the power we need at affordable prices. But just as the greens are against clean natural gas and fracking, they also oppose nuclear power.

The radical environmentalists are insisting that the only energy alternative that will save the planet is wind and solar power — the two options guaranteed to most decelerate modern industrialization and economic progress across the globe. Perhaps that is what the far Left really wants: to force mankind to slow down growth and human advancement. If that is their real agenda, then forcing businesses and families to use inferior and expensive energy is a smart strategy.

SOURCE




UN blames ‘educated people’ for opposition to extreme Greenie agenda

40 years after the Khmer Rouge massacred 2.2 million people, a socialist regime is once again blaming the educated class for opposition to its plans for widespread land controls.

A new United Nations report blames “educated people” for growing opposition to its Agenda 21 plan to de-develop capitalist economies and seize control of land.

The Newman Report writes:

…as far as the nebulous, totalitarian concept relates to education, the UN has already made clear that more education is actually a threat to sustainability.

“Generally, more highly educated people, who have higher incomes, consume more resources than poorly educated people, who tend to have lower incomes,” explains a UN “toolkit” for global “sustainable” education, which is still posted online at UNESCO’s website. “In this case, more education increases the threat to sustainability.”

“More education increases the threat to sustainability,” the United Nations declares.

But that’s not all.

“Unfortunately, the most educated nations leave the deepest ecological footprints, meaning they have the highest per-capita rates of consumption,” the UN claims.

Yes, that’s the UN claiming that anti-intellectualism is a virtue, because it doesn’t allow people to improve their lives by being more productive.

That’s a chilling echo of Cambodian dictator Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, which preached the virtues of rolling back centuries of human progress to go back to Iron Age agrarian living. When intellectuals and common citizens pointed out that would mean widespread poverty and suffering, they were targeted and killed.

The UN’s solution?  Seize control of the means of education and re-direct them to indoctrinating children on the need to de-develop their lifestyles.

Of course, the Khmer Rouge tried that, too.

SOURCE




Australia to get a draconian fuel efficiency standard?

Sounds like America's CAFE, which is widely deplored and likely to be cut back by Trump.  The idea is for cars to get more miles per gallon -- but that pushes people into small cars, which may not suit families and others

Malcolm Turnbull's proposed 'carbon tax' could push up the price of new cars by more than $5,000 for Australian buyers.

The Government's proposed tax details penalties for car distributors that fail to meet fuel efficiency targets.

Distributors told The Daily Telegraph they were shocked by the 'extreme' proposal when they received it on Monday.

Australian Automobile Association chief executive officer Michael Bradley told the publication the carbon tax would without a doubt force up the price of new cars.

'This would be one of the most extreme efficiency standards in the world and will lead to car prices going up and motorists having fewer cars to choose from,' he said.

'There is no escaping the fact that if the government pushes ahead with this proposal it will mean more expensive cars.'

Under the Government's proposed Fuel Efficiency Standard, it planned to have 65 per cent of vehicles complying with emissions targets by 2022 and 100 per cent by 2025. Emissions penalties would commence in 2025.

The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries' acting chief executive Tony McDonald said emissions penalties would add thousands of dollars onto the price of a new car.

While the proposal was still under assessment, Mr McDonald said it would have a huge impact on Australian consumers if it were to go ahead.

'The industry firmly believes this high target is unrealistic and ill-considered,' he said.

Mr McDonald said Australia's peak car industry bodies consulted with the Government for 18 months.

He said the outcome was far more extreme than the industry expected.

The Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development said it was just a proposal and nothing was confirmed.

The department said it welcomed stakeholder feedback.

If emissions were not offset within the next three calendar years, the price of some of Australia's most popular cars could cost upwards of $5,000 more.

The Ford Ranger would cost more than $2,000 more to buy, the Toyota Corolla would cost almost $4,000 more, and the Hyundai i30 would cost $5,770 more.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  

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